Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

Following my last diary entry, I would like to discuss how to deal with the wiki pages containing outdated content. There have been some deletion requests (including reverts, list) and some template applications so far.

Which pages should be kept in the wiki for documentation purposes? (Background: some pages like "Kosmos" feature extensive subpages, some proposals were just edited once)

Should they be changed to reflect their historical relevance? (How?) (Background: Are templates like 'Historic artifact' useful to avoid confusion with current content? Should we summarize long pages?)

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

Generally proposals should be kept. Only if there is 0 usage of the proposed tagging they could be removed, ideally by their proponent, or if they are not active in OSM any more, the proposal could be put on a public deletions-list and automatically deleted after some time like 3 months or so. But usually tags from “inactive”proposals are in use anyway, hence the proposal should be kept for documentation.

There are two lists already: Labelled for deletion for straight-forward and not disputed cases and Deletion Proposed for pages with ongoing discussion or proposals (in case the people were not sure and want someone else to review, before *requesting* deletion (first list)).

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

Going through the list of deletion requests, reverted by Mateusz Konieczny today https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index. … 2019-02-01, I request deletion in the following cases as well (pretty sure, I did not request it in the first place, because I just received 1 notification):

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Pro … s/Bag_shop (unifying different spelling variants, proposed new tag already became common before voting already, so no voting took place, few additional information on the page and its history (how proposed, alternatives, definition of a bag shop)

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

Thanks @Tigerfell for starting with the case studies, this is a good start. In the end I'd like to have a list of criteria that can be applied to these cases, to make decisions more objective. Naturally however, the criteria for keeping and those for deleting will always have some grey area between them, whereever the threshold is set.

In general, I see the threshold for deletion quite high. OSM lives from the community discussing its changes, and this discussion is expressed in the history of the communication channels. We do keep archives of mailing lists for example, and nobody sits there and weeds out mails that are not relevant to the topic. Equally, the history of wiki pages is an elementary element for transparency, and to understand reasons for decisions and developments. This particularly true for proposals.

So I'd like to start with an incomplete draft for both lists.

To delete* Typo pages, e.g. a page was started with a misspelling in the title, the page has been moved to the correct one. The remaining redirect stub can be deleted.* Spam unrelated to OSM* Violations of people's privacy / data protection rights* Draft pages on request of the original author, that have not attracted discussion from other users * Pages that are contrary to basic principles in OSM (e.g. proposing to severely violating copyright, or Good practice). However, if this violation of principles is more subtle and therefore being discussed or disputed, that is a discussion to preserve.* Utter nonsense (needs further definition, maybe the bullet above is one)* Proposals that only mention a tag, that is not being used, without describing/explaining its meaning

To keep* Proposals with a vote* Proposals for tags that are being used, even without a voting process* Proposals that serve as a documentation for a tag, even if it is not widely used. This should prevent that a tag is being used for a different purpose later. Feel free to add a taginfo counter to such page. * Proposals that attracted other users who contributed to the page or its discussion. Feel free to add deep-red boxes about the proposal being abandoned or the tag being used inconsistently. * Proposals independent of their age, i.e. age should not be a criterion. OSM itself is just 15yo. * Pages linked from other pages

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

I don't think "propsals that have attracted users" should be included in that. Most proposals have had minor "house keeping" edits done to them at some point by either one or multiple users. So it essentially disqualify 99% of the potential propsals right off.

The amount, quality, and usefulness of the information should be the criteria. Not that a few people over a ten year period changed "RFC" from upper to lower case, changed a comma to a period, or anything else along those lines.

Id also include "propsal pages with broad definitions of objects that aren't osm specific and can be found somewhere else." I've had a few deltion propsals reverted on pages that were something like boat=whatever, then a line half way down saying "A boat is a thing you put in the water to get across lakes in", but nothing else. Then the person doing the revert said it was because that information was "relevent to the history of osm." Which is ridiculous. So the content criteria for saving a page shouldn't be "any comtent."

As far as the age thing goes, I only use it as a measure for mostly empty pages as one veriable to help judge if the page might be worth saving in case someone might come along and edit it at some point. Like, if the page is blank, only has one edit, but is only a year old, who knows if the person who created it will come back or not. Whereas, with a ten year old page with no edits (beyond supperifical ones) or content since its original creation probably has zero chance of original creator of it ever wanting to come back and revise it. Plus, a close to zero chance of anyone else wanting to try and revive it. That's the only situation where age plays a part for me and I never said otherwise. Obviously it would be stupid to delete all propsal pages after they have been around for a few years and I wouldn't suggest it. Although for some reason I was treated as if that's what I was doing.

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

Id also add propsals for already existing tags where the person that created the tag is "oh, I just realized there's already a tag for that" and then abandons it. In those cases the content is often just a duplicate of the tags propsal page, or if there is something unique it would be more useful to transfer it to the propsal page of the tag that's being used instead so people will actually read it.

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

We already have a list of general criteria on page https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Delete which is based on someone's experience, but it is more general. I hoped we could limit it to the proposals for now, because they seem to be very controversial.

The difference between mailing lists and the wiki is that ML are a historical source, but the wiki is a documentation based upon such sources (ironically the proposals serve as a source themselves). We seem to keep a distinction between the two kinds of pages with counters on feature (documentation) pages like https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag … ent_agency and proposal boxes on the proposal pages like https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Pro … tures/Tree. This is done to avoid the people changing the proposal after the vote or getting irritated. Thank you for the list, Polarbear. You find my opinion below:

To delete

I have the feeling that it rather kills the administrators' time, so I would prefer redirects, but oh well...

+1

+1

+1 -> I think that should be okay even if others request deletion after a discussion or a long time of no activity.

wording seems okay, but I think this is really tricky: in my list above, there were two proposals about mapping flowers, but we do map trees, right? Maybe the length of the discussion could be an indicator?

would limit this to hoaxes (I remember something like cuisine=high_quality, which was supposed to be a joke)

Well, what if the proposal mentions the tags but they were used before the proposal already, so the proposal effectively did not influence the tagging?

This would relate to failed or cancelled proposals only. I am undecided in this case, because I also see the task of the wiki or encourage common tagging, so that we do not need to document tons of alternatives and discourage users to choose the less used one.

I guess you refer to significant content additions (excluding categorisations and spelling corrections). Adding this criterion would mean that proposals set up by multiple people would be less likely to be deleted than the others. I fear that people confuse proposals with the documentation and therefore change the proposals, not because they want to contribute.

Age should be a criterion (same opinion as Adamant1), because some users start with a proposal page that has a very low quality and then improve this over time while discussing the content on the mailing list. Since it is rather difficult to check every list (thinking of foreign languages), age is a good criterion to estimate if something is a draft or abandoned.

I prefer to value the quality of the links, because essentially every proposal is linked to a category like "Proposals with status x". Apart from that, wiki users create links to make it easier to find a proposal relating to a specific topic. We once had a page version of Types of relation listing basically every proposal that could include a relation and even ideas of non-existing proposals. This would have basically blocked every relation proposal from deletion. In addition, "delinking" is part of a deletion process, you find better pages and finally figure out that the page itself is useless and request deletion.

Adamant1 wrote:

Id also include "propsal pages with broad definitions of objects that aren't osm specific and can be found somewhere else." I've had a few deltion propsals reverted on pages that were something like boat=whatever, then a line half way down saying "A boat is a thing you put in the water to get across lakes in", but nothing else. Then the person doing the revert said it was because that information was "relevent to the history of osm." Which is ridiculous. So the content criteria for saving a page shouldn't be "any comtent."

Agree, current example: Bag_shop (this also compares different ones, so I would discuss first)

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

Quality and usefulness High quality and usefulness imply: not a duplication of other proposals, contains a definition + a comparison to existing or other proposed tags (like "a=b is better than b=a because ...", "you can not express ... with the tags a, b, and c")

Polarbear wrote:

age is a good criterion to estimate if something is a draft or abandoned

A criterion for being abandoned, yes, but being abandoned does not mean to be deleted.

I am talking about the conjunction of different factors here, for instance if we have a poor proposal which seems to be incomplete, and it was never voted upon, then its age is an additional factor for arguing in favour of deletion, because the chance that the original author comes back are pretty low.

supperifical ones

minor edits, spell check...

Polarbear wrote:

to value the quality of the links

Sure. What I mean is that content on other pages refers to this; not automatic categorisation.

I the problem are lists, updated by humans comparably to "manual categories" and poorly related "see also" links.

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

Tigerfell wrote:

Going through the list of deletion requests, reverted by Mateusz Konieczny today https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index. … 2019-02-01, I request deletion in the following cases as well (pretty sure, I did not request it in the first place, because I just received 1 notification):

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

dieterdreist wrote:

Generally proposals should be kept. Only if there is 0 usage of the proposed tagging they could be removed, ideally by their proponent, or if they are not active in OSM any more, the proposal could be put on a public deletions-list and automatically deleted after some time like 3 months or so. But usually tags from “inactive”proposals are in use anyway, hence the proposal should be kept for documentation.

+1

The cost of deciding what to delete is pretty high even in reasonably clear cases because it is an irreversible act purging all content and history. Once a delete request creates controversy this cost goes further up substantially.

What is the benefit of deleting a few ancient useless proposals? Does it ever justify the work involved?

Are there better alternatives to permanently purging useless old pages? Aren't a few amboxes good enough? Moving to another wiki-namespace?

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

What is the benefit of deleting a few ancient useless proposals? Does it ever justify the work involved?

You avoid maintenance tasks such as categorisation (changes over time continuously), watching out for vandalism, and reverting destructive edits. In addition, you are able to focus the documentation of currently used content (not that relevant for proposals, but in case of software lists or recommendations/comparisons).

Lastly, I guess some users like to clean up and condensing content (a similar process happens in the brain with our memories).

Going through the list set up by Polarbear, the process is straightforward: You check if it qualifies for deletion and otherwise you leave everything as it is.

Are there better alternatives to permanently purging useless old pages?

Honestly, you could think of a read-only system for old proposals. Employing such a system would save some maintenance, because no one needs to watch the changes and you can basically keep everything (like with the mailing list archives). There would be quite a lot of "low quality content" though (proposals we currently delete for instance, although I am not saying everything I would delete is of a "low quality", some things are just duplicates or discussions that never took place because no one was interested, proposals based on misunderstandings...).

Such a system would not be like a wiki, but rather like a database storing a log of all actions with no option to change it later on. User Ezekiel "stored" some of the proposals on a user sub page, but I dislike that because still everyone could change it, but it is more tricky as it is in a user space and it is not really related to this user.

Still, you would need to decide when a proposal is ready for archiving and this is not trivial either...

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

Once a delete request creates controversy this cost goes further up substantially.

I don't think whether to do basic up keep tasks on a website or not should be based on an "outrage meter." Since it can easily lead to self-selection bias, where the outraged people think their opinions are in the majority and most important. Simply because they are in the outraged group themselves. There is also a strong chance of confirmation bias that way also. Since strong, negative opinions are over represented, because people who are fine with something don't usually comment about it. Or if they do it's usually after the fact to complain that things didn't turn out how they wanted. I see it happen all the time, both here and on the main style's Github page.

Therefore, it's all around better to have actual quantitative guidelines to follow, that we can keep unbiased as possible and be able to point to later if someone complains or wants the page deleted again. Outrage tends to ebb and flow and can always be disputed. The fact that a proposal page shouldn't be deleted because it has votes doesn't though and it can't be disputed as easily. Someone would have to revise the guidelines to get their way. Which is much harder in practice then finding a couple of other people willing to be outraged at the same thing as them.

In general, the more we can step out of our own ways (which also includes me) and "automate" this stuff the better IMHO. It reduces needless discussion and arguments if nothing else. I'm sure we all have better things to do with our time. It also partly deals with the possibility of someone using shill accounts or similar tactics, that could create a fake controversy and make it seem like there's a majority opinion on either side when there actually isn't.

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

as to point 4, I would remove the exceptions (except for relevance and deletion discussions). Obviously, if the only discussion is the autor (that's what the paragraph is about) raising an issue for deletion and nobody is defending the page, that would mean deletion, but otherwise, if there _were_ arguments in favor of the proposal, I would keep it.

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

Obviously, if the only discussion is the autor (that's what the paragraph is about) raising an issue for deletion ...

No, the intention was to include an option, that a second person could step up (after one year without changes) and propose and discuss about a deletion of a draft meaning incomplete proposal(use cases: initial author lost interest, did not know how/if to delete, abandoned draft without the qualities defined in https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtop … 53#p736853). In this case, the deletion action should not be blocked by the fact that there was a discussion with the final result leading to a deletion.

The key point is this "second person".

if there _were_ arguments in favor of the proposal, I would keep it.

I was hoping that every discussion would finally lead to some result (one or the other way).

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

I think one reason why the discussion was so heated in the first place was because people were using {{Delete}} instead of {{delete proposal}}, perhaps not even knowing the better alternative???

Even if an old proposal is total garbage it is almost never very urgent to delete it. I am thinking that even if the case for deletion is pretty clear it might be much better to use {{delete proposal}} so that ideally a few users can leave their comments making the decision for the admin easier. Delete proposal also has the big advantage that in case the decision is to keep the page the discussion about deletion will be preserved and won't repeat every few months.

The https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Delete already says that {{Delete}} should be used only "If you are very sure that a deletion is the right way and you have some experience with this wiki" but apparently this is not enough. It should not happen that someone puts the {{Delete}} template on 13 pages out of which only 3 turn out to be uncontested.

I would suggest to very strongly discourage the use of the {{Delete}} method on anything except "own" content.

I would also suggest to prolong the deadlines to respond to a delete proposal by at least an order of a magnitude. Currently it says

If there is no reaction within a week you may also ask other more experienced users for their opinion by using their talk pages.

If there is no objection during the discussion, you may remove the template and resume with option 2.

This might be enough at wikipedia but here many people are lucky if they manage to login every month and discussions tend to be slow and long lasting. We have now some really old proposals laying around so I do not understand the hurry to get rid of them so quickly.

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

This is off-topic, but since you asked for it and it is somewhat related (and maybe helps to understand the discussion), I will explain my "answers" to your questions:

I think one reason why the discussion was so heated in the first place was because people were using {{Delete}} instead of {{delete proposal}}, perhaps not even knowing the better alternative???

Agree! Many people also remove all other content of the page (as the template says). I guess this caused further aggression.

Even if an old proposal is total garbage it is almost never very urgent to delete it.

True, it should just happen some time before the user requesting/proposing the deletion forgets about it, because then any argumentation will be a bit awkward. It looks to me as there was some lack of maintenance in the past.

I am thinking that even if the case for deletion is pretty clear it might be much better to use {{delete proposal}} so that ideally a few users can leave their comments making the decision for the admin easier.

Well, admins check the deletion requests (so that no one "rushes though" and gets everything deleted that they want). The idea of {{delete proposal}} is to make other people aware of an ongoing discussion. Admins usually do not check those, because they are not the masters who decide. Instead, they wait for the community to make a decision and then execute it. Their task is basically double checking and executing the request if the check was passed. (Any admin may correct me.)

Delete proposal also has the big advantage that in case the decision is to keep the page the discussion about deletion will be preserved and won't repeat every few months.

I do not understand. You can always comment on the talk page, I would just change the template to signal that the discussion is not done yet.

I would suggest to very strongly discourage the use of the {{Delete}} method on anything except "own" content.

There are very clear cases, for instance the results of broken redirects report (either change redirect or delete it, but mostly deleting) or spam. I would usually do them right away, but since we discuss, I will not request any deletions. Talking about occasional wiki editors, I would strongly discourage it as well.

I would also suggest to prolong the deadlines to respond to a delete proposal by at least an order of a magnitude.

I see the problem, but on the other hand, I would suggest to put those pages you are interested in on your watchlist. I often check pages simply because I received a notification e-mail. You can also check, Category:Labelled for deletion (deletion requests) and Category:Deletion Proposed (English deletion proposals). If we extend the time too far, then they will fill up even more (currently 240 in the first category only), but maybe you got a point.

-------------------

Any further comments on the draft?@dieterdreist Is everything okay with point 4 now?

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

Tigerfell wrote:

Well, admins check the deletion requests (so that no one "rushes though" and gets everything deleted that they want). The idea of {{delete proposal}} is to make other people aware of an ongoing discussion. Admins usually do not check those, because they are not the masters who decide. Instead, they wait for the community to make a decision and then execute it. Their task is basically double checking and executing the request if the check was passed. (Any admin may correct me.)

And I think this is how it should work in most cases unless there is some sort of urgency to delete the page.

Delete proposal also has the big advantage that in case the decision is to keep the page the discussion about deletion will be preserved and won't repeat every few months.

I do not understand. You can always comment on the talk page, I would just change the template to signal that the discussion is not done yet.

The Delete proposal template encourages delete discussion on the talk page, the other delete doesn't. So if it is decided that the page should not be deleted you have a good record why it was not deleted in the first case but ot in the other case.

I would suggest to very strongly discourage the use of the {{Delete}} method on anything except "own" content.

There are very clear cases, for instance the results of broken redirects report (either change redirect or delete it, but mostly deleting) or spam. I would usually do them right away, but since we discuss, I will not request any deletions. Talking about occasional wiki editors, I would strongly discourage it as well.

admittedly there are a few cases that are very clear like the broken redirects you mention but you get the idea.. nothing that has the potential to incite discussions should be done by a plain delete.

I would also suggest to prolong the deadlines to respond to a delete proposal by at least an order of a magnitude.

I see the problem, but on the other hand, I would suggest to put those pages you are interested in on your watchlist. I often check pages simply because I received a notification e-mail. You can also check, Category:Labelled for deletion (deletion requests) and Category:Deletion Proposed (English deletion proposals). If we extend the time too far, then they will fill up even more (currently 240 in the first category only), but maybe you got a point.

I see the 240 pages in the delete category and think maybe it grows so big because people use it wrongly which makes the job for the admins difficult. The first one which I click on is https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Map … ring_Rules and sure I believe it is not uncontroversial to do a plain delete on this one without any further discussion. So I am reverting that.

Another problem there if the pages are Polish or whatever other language.. do we have enough admins who speak all languages?

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

RicoZ wrote:

The first one which I click on is https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Map … ring_Rules and sure I believe it is not uncontroversial to do a plain delete on this one without any further discussion. So I am reverting that.

Mapofix is obviously a user name, so I moved the whole page to the user namespace instead. This is probably the best place to keep such stuff.

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

Tigerfell wrote:

We already have a list of general criteria on page https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Delete which is based on someone's experience, but it is more general. I hoped we could limit it to the proposals for now, because they seem to be very controversial.

No matter how elaborate you make this criteria, there will be always corner cases and different opinions. It should be stressed that if in doubt we generally prefer keeping over deleting. Deleting things requires special care and may waste admin time and the time of many people for a very modest gain at best.

Also we need a clear and simple deescalation policy - how about: "if anyone places a {{delete}} template and it is contested or reversed, proceed with {{delete proposal}} or forget it".

Re: Documenting the history of OpenStreetMap

Tigerfell wrote:

I would also suggest to prolong the deadlines to respond to a delete proposal by at least an order of a magnitude.

I see the problem, but on the other hand, I would suggest to put those pages you are interested in on your watchlist. I often check pages simply because I received a notification e-mail. You can also check, Category:Labelled for deletion (deletion requests) and Category:Deletion Proposed (English deletion proposals). If we extend the time too far, then they will fill up even more (currently 240 in the first category only), but maybe you got a point.

Did anyone look how many of these 240 are by user Adamant1? I see there might be quite a few - and I would suggest all those requests for deletion are suspended, changed to delete proposal or handled otherwise because previously not all of his delete requests were uncontested.